Observation: Will DM Barak approve construction of 5 neighborhoods in
response to Itamar slaughter?

Dr. Aaron Lerner Date: 12 March 2011

Will DM Ehud Barak approve the construction of 5 neighborhoods in the West
Bank to memorialize the five Israelis murdered in Itamar?

Such a move would achieve several goals:

#1. The move would turn the terrorists who murdered the Israelis from
Palestinian heroes (if they are killed they will graduate to hero-martyr
status) to being the jerks whose action caused Israel to build 5
neighborhoods in the West Bank.

#2. The deterrent impact of the move would be tremendous since any murder of
Israelis only serves to “reward” the settlers with permission to build more
neighborhoods. Announcing that the same response will be in the event of a
death caused by rocket attacks from the Gaza Strip can be expected to have a
chilling effect on attacks from Gaza as well.

#3. The move would serve to discourage “price tag” revenge attacks.

Yes, this move is not as easy as the focus on Palestinian incitement. But
while the incitement theme may look promising, experience has shown that we
can quite quickly get sucked into endless discussions as to just what
constitutes “incitement” with the Palestinians pulling out their clippings
with counter claims.

The White House may not celebrate that murdering Israelis leads to Israeli
construction but that’s hardly “continuing the cycle of violence”.

Dr. Aaron Lerner, Director IMRA (Independent Media Review & Analysis)
(Mail POB 982 Kfar Sava)
Tel 972-9-7604719/Fax 972-3-7255730
INTERNET ADDRESS: imra@netvision.net.il
Website: http://www.imra.org.il